Poverty in Bhutan Dr Richard A Engelhardt, regional advisor for culture in Asia and Pacific, UNESCO, observed was not about land, space, houses or other intangible things like health care and education nor was it about food. “It is more about rural areas not having cash to buy the basic necessities,” he said.

Cultural industries or culture-based creative industry, Dr Engelhardt said, was an ideal concept to address the issue of not having cash income for the rural folks in the country.

“Cultural industries are something that employs people, some are more creative and highly skilled while others are in the support level. It's a business, an industry,” he said.

According to Ms Permille Askerud, international consultant, UNESCO, all that was required was for the government to recognise an activity or practice already existing within a rural community and giving impetus to help them start a cultural industry.

“One of the advantages with cultural industries is its being small business units,” said Ms Askerud, adding that entering into these businesses was easy because they did not require huge capital.

Dr Engelharst added that one did not require any specialised training because the cultural skills already existed within the community. “We see cultural industries as a potential area to create jobs outside Thimphu, in rural communities because its entry levels are easy.”

The country had a human resource, which could be turned more productive through such initiatives, Ms Askerud said. “The only skill, people in the rural areas lack, is how to turn their activities into businesses and make money out of a skill,” she said.

Dr Engelhardt explained that under cultural industries value was added to each product as artists got more creative along the course of the work. “Each one becomes more valuable and expensive than the previous because of the added value that comes with creativity,” he said.

But since cultural industries are not recognised as industries, they are unfairly disagvantaged against the other industries in terms of tax breaks and special laws to import materials.

For these reasons, Dr. Engelhardt said that traditional cultural industries got fewer in the country while new industries had a hard time starting up. “They cannot compete with industries that are supported by the government,” he said.

Ms. Askerud added that throughout the world, typically cultural industries were a small units and the kind of support that the government would have to render was significantly as important as any big industry.

“That is why we need to engage different kinds of policies and relevant government organisations,” she said. “If Bhutan does not participate in cultural industries now, it'll slip farther behind on the scale of word development.”